Hunter Kiss: Labyrinth Of Stars Part 6

And pa.s.sed the f.u.c.k out.

CHAPTER 8.

MAYBE there's a G.o.d. I don't know. What I'm certain of is there are plenty of pretenders. No bigger con in the universe. No stakes higher. Power is the measure by which they live or die. But even so, they aren't that different from humans.

G.o.ds love. G.o.ds kill.

And then there's me.

WHEN I opened my eyes, I found an old woman sharpening her machete against my arm. Sparks popped, and the grind of the metal against those obsidian tattoos was soft and cold.

"Mary," I said, slowly.

Her smile was lopsided, eyes a little too bright, too intense, to be completely, absolutely sane. "Teeth need sharper blades."

"Some other time." I pushed myself up. It wasn't hard. I was strong. If the memory of what had happened weren't still horrifically real inside me, I would have thought it was nothing more harmless than a nightmare.

I was on the couch, soft pillows piled under my knees. Naked beneath a light sheet. The front door of the farmhouse had been propped open, letting in a warm breeze that I felt only on my face. I heard chimes tinkling, and young, inhuman laughter, like a growl tickling the air.

A strong, familiar hand appeared in front of me, holding a gla.s.s of water.

"Glad you're awake," Grant said, quietly. "Mary, go outside."

The old woman tilted her head, studying him. She was wearing a housedress embroidered with poodles, a wide leather belt cinched tight around her nonexistent waist. Weapons hung from it: knives, two hammers, and a second machete. The dress was too large; the neck gaped so much I could see her breastbone, and the flat, circular stone embedded there in her flesh.

It was engraved: a knotted tangle of lines that had no beginning, no end. Same emblem as the pendant Grant wore around his neck: a mark of his family line.

"Must be strong," Mary murmured to him. "Lightbringer. Inheritor of blood."

Father, I thought. Still a father.

Grant's gaze met mine. He'd heard my thought, I was sure of it. And I was glad.

Warmth crept into his eyes. He did not look away from me as Mary slid the machete one last time over my arm and stood. I didn't look at her either as she walked from us on the tips of her toes, gliding gracefully through the open farmhouse door. Her voice hummed a tuneless, eerie melody.

"Move over," Grant said.

It was an old couch, wide and deep enough for several families, and their demons. I scooted sideways, and my husband lay down heavily beside me, using both hands to pull his bad leg onto the couch. We lay together, me on my side, him on his back. My head rested on his warm chest. I could feel his ribs beneath his flannel s.h.i.+rt but pretended not to notice. My arms were bare against him, black with the bodies of the boys, who slept soft and heavy. I stared for a moment. I always stared because it was always new.

My skin was not human. Not during the day. My skin was made of scales and muscle, and veins of organic silver that glittered and pulsed and threaded over me like rivers of deadly light. I was untouchable, like this. Not heat or cold, nor nuclear fire, could break me. Not a fall from a million miles. My fingernails were black, capable of cracking stone or tearing holes in steel. I used them now to grip my husband's s.h.i.+rt and hold him tight.

Because immortality didn't mean s.h.i.+t. Not when you still had a human heart.

Grant gave me silence. He gave me himself. No questions. I was so grateful for that. I didn't want to talk, or remember. I might start crying again, and there was nothing worse, nothing, not when I already felt cut, torn, clawed open. Tears had no place here. My baby was alive. Keeping her safe was all that mattered.

But finally I talked. Everything that happened after I left him, even the conversation with the possessed waitress. Each word hurt.

"The Mahati was dead, and the Aetar still possessed her body. When the attack came . . ." I stopped, and his arms tightened. "I didn't even know until it was too late. The boys and I . . . we couldn't do anything to stop it."

"I should have been there with you."

"Don't. That's an impossible regret."

He tapped my head with his hand. "Don't tell me what I should regret. I've got enough emotions inside me that aren't mine. What I feel . . . what matters to me . . . it's the only way I'm holding on to my ident.i.ty."

That was a new revelation. A hundred different responses pushed through me, most of them involving death to demons. I closed my eyes and swallowed them all. "The thing inside me . . ."

"Yes," he said heavily. "I know."

He didn't ask what the price would be for saving our daughter. No use, no need to complicate that one simple acknowledgment. I'd made the bargain and sealed it on our baby's life. What needed paying would be paid, with no regrets, no negotiation.

"We're sitting ducks," he went on. "We have to fight, Maxine. Any minute, we could be attacked, from any direction, any thing."

"So we find the Aetar, and what then? There are too many, and they're scattered across the universe. We kill the one who's bothering us now, and another will come. And they'll keep coming, and we'll be in this same situation again and again."

"And if we run?"

"Maybe," I muttered. "But then we'll always run. And even that might not save us."

Grant sighed. "Those six humans killed on our land were poisoned. Dead too long for me to get a strong read off them. I can't tell you how they were altered, except the Mahati and Osul who ate parts of them died. Looked like something out of The Exorcist. But you know that."

I pulled at the collar of his s.h.i.+rt, examining his chest for any stowaway slugs. "I'm surprised the Shurik and Yorana didn't take bites out of those humans."

"The Shurik burrow into the living. Corpses aren't their thing. And the Yorana . . . prefer seduction before the hunt." His jaw tightened; so did his hand on my back, fingers digging into my shoulder. "Zee was right. We need to leave, Maxine. We've known from the beginning. We waited too long to face it."

It was hard, hearing him say those words. Made it too real-and that choice was full of unknowns. It didn't feel safe.

But it could be safer, I thought. Zee and the boys had never steered me wrong. They were family. All of us, together.

Grant squeezed my hand. "Maxine."

"I'm scared," I said, thinking about my mother.

"Me, too." He kissed the top of my head. "We'll figure it out."

I placed his hand on my stomach and held it there. "We need help. We need it now."

No response. Grant was a former priest, and far too polite to say, "No f.u.c.king way." But I could practically hear it in my head.

"I need to find my grandfather," I said.

MEN have never existed in my family. No records of their names. No mention of fathers. You'd think we could clone ourselves-and given how closely all the women of my line resemble one another, that might be the case.

At any rate, my ancestors, those who could read and write, kept journals-and while not many of those survived (most of them stored in a lockbox in New York City), what did keep always made it clear: The Kiss women stand alone.

No family but mother and daughter, and the boys. No friends, no allies, no connection. No talk of love. My mother certainly drilled that into me, again and again.

But it was a lie. Maybe the biggest of all the lies she ever told me.

I could not be the only one who had rebelled against that family law. Surely some of us had tried-tried to have a normal life. It would have been difficult, yes, but not impossible. Even my mother had fallen in love-loved deeply-although the circ.u.mstances of that union were so strange and tragic, I refused to let myself dwell on it. I couldn't think about my father.

My grandfather was another matter entirely.

Old Wolf. Meddling Man. With eons of blood on his hands.

And yet I loved him. Maybe from the very beginning, when I'd first seen his photograph with my grandmother, and all the vast possibilities of what he and I could mean to each other were still fresh in my head. Before I'd learned the truth of what he was. Before a lot of things. I was so young, then. Desperate to have some part of my mother returned to me. My grandfather was the perfect surrogate.

But that's what happens with family. Sometimes you love what you should hate. Sometimes you trust when you should suspect. My mother probably would have been smarter, more careful with her heart-she was the true warrior. Always perfect, always strong. I was nothing but a pale imitation.

But that's the way it is with mothers and daughters.

Someone is always being left behind.

IT was lunchtime in Texas, the sun blazing hot. The void spat us out into a world that was sweaty, blinking with electricity, and smelled like the seat of a dirty toilet. It was also night-and the boys woke right the f.u.c.k up.

It was like being drowned in a vat full of acid and fire. No beginning, no end, just the slow peel of my skin from my body, every inch from my fingernails to between my legs. I staggered, already disoriented from the void. Hitting night like this was the worst. At least with sunset, I had some warning. I could prepare myself.

Tattoos dissolved into black smoke, flaying me from my toenails to the roots of my hair. I could not breathe. I could not make a sound. My mother had never made a sound. Just smiled, and laughed, so that I never knew the truth until it was my turn. I realized now the strength of her sacrifice-how she'd saved me a lifetime of fear and dread by making me think this s.h.i.+t would be easy.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that immortality-even the half-a.s.s kind-doesn't come without a price.

The boys ripped free, a sliding, terrible heat that felt as though their sinuous bodies were petals hot with lava. Claws sc.r.a.ped. Whispers pattered. In small pieces, the pain eased. But I still shook, and when my vision cleared, I was on my knees. Dek and Mal clung to my shoulders, humming Sting's "Every Breath You Take."

"Maxine," whispered Zee. "Sweet Maxine."

"Hey," I said, mouth so dry I could barely form the word. I glimpsed movement at the corner of my eye: Grant's feet, and the bottom of his cane. His hand came down, and I grabbed it, hard.

He pulled me up into his arms. His breath was warm on my neck, and I kissed his throat. His skin tasted hot, feverish.

"We're in Taiwan," he said, pulling away. "Taipei. Been here before when I was young."

I looked around. We were standing inside an unlit street so narrow I could have stretched out my arms and laid my palms flat against each opposing wall. Electric wires and other thick cables hung above our heads, along with laundry and birdcages. Raw and Aaz clung to the walls, claws dug in and hanging upside down. Both of them reached into the shadows and pulled out hand grenades. They yanked out the pins, and shoved the live explosives into their mouths.

Grant blew out his breath and looked away. "We better get moving."

I touched Zee's head. "We need Jack."

But the little demon didn't move, except to lean in and press his ear against my stomach. A tremor pa.s.sed through him, and in moments Raw and Aaz gathered close, also leaning in for a hard, close embrace. I wrapped my arms around them, sharing their weak relief, and reverence. My heart, thick in my throat. Dek and Mal licked my ears, and Grant slid his hands against them into my hair. His brow pressed to mine.

"We're okay," I whispered.

"Yes," Zee murmured, against my belly. "Her dreams still sing."

Grant pulled me closer. I leaned against him, vision swelling in a slow burn that blurred the shadows with tears. Zee reached out and covered our joined hands, those claws soft as silk. Small sighs filled my hair.

"Family," Zee rasped. "Strong as, deep as."

"Family," Grant echoed softly.

"Mine," I said, but it didn't make me feel better.

CHAPTER 9.

IT was a bad night to be out. Hot, wet, with mountain-kissed thunderclouds and humid winds gathered thick over a red-light market slum in the heart of Taipei. We were far from home.

Tourists spilled into the narrow road. Grant and I skirted the crowd, listening to gasps and camera clicks, and uneasy laughter. My heart tightened into a painful knot when I peered around them and saw a little girl, no older than eight or nine, grab a cobra from its tank and slip a wire noose over its head.

No fear on her face. Just focus: cold, unrelenting. Little hands pulled hard on the cobra's writhing tail-straightening that long, muscular body with an ease that would have been only slightly less disturbing if she hadn't been dressed like a ballerina, wrapped in a ratty pink tutu with bows in her braided hair.

A middle-aged man stood beside her. He held a curved blade, fake rubies glittering up and down the hilt. No costume. Just bloodstains on his pants and a smile on his face as he gazed at the gathered crowd.

Demon. Possessed by one, at any rate. I saw the shadow thick as ash above his head, flecks of darkness snowing down upon his shoulders.

His gaze found mine. His smile slipped. I made a gun sign with my hand and pointed it at his face. Grant shook his head, and the demon took a step back, placing himself behind the child.

Grant and I shared a quick look but kept walking. We weren't here for him, or any girls who weren't our own.

We moved fast. Grant's breathing became labored though his pace didn't slow. His color wasn't good-too pale, but with a flush high in his cheeks that looked like a fever. I wasn't feeling well, either. Sweat poured down my back, between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. So humid it was difficult to breathe though I'd never had a problem before with heat. My body felt hollow, weak, heart pounding so hard. I blamed it on the near miscarriage, but there was a part of me-very small-that kept seeing that Mahati demon vomiting to death: blood and bile staining the snow. I couldn't shake the dread.

I touched the sinuous bodies coiled tight around my throat. Scales soft, warm. Dek and Mal loosened their holds on me, making it easier to breathe. For the first time in my life, I wasn't worried about anyone seeing them on my shoulders. We were past that now. It was all too late.

Zee slid through the shadows beside me, nothing but a sliver, a glimpse, a glint of red eyes. Raw and Aaz glided above the street, leaping between the neon lights that covered storefront windows and the signs hanging vertically from cracked, aging buildings. I felt them, close as my skin, close as my heart, racing quick. Little kings. Little family.

Tourists thinned. So did the light. More locals now, men dressed in house slippers and limp white tanks and slacks; several teen girls in miniskirts, smoking cigarettes and drinking bubble tea, giving us bored glances. Just more foreigners, overdressed for the heat.

Two old women stepped into our path: short, compact, hard lines etched into their sharp chins and cheeks. Small feral eyes, glittering. Hands flashed; for a moment I thought they held knives or b.a.l.l.s of light. Their auras were full of demonic shadows. More of the possessed.

My first instinct was to kill them. Not the human hosts but the demons inside. My entire body tensed with the need-and I had to tell myself, had to remember, that things were different now. We were all on the same side. More or less.

The demons gave us wary looks and waved the flashlights they held, pointing the beams at a narrow metal door squeezed inside an alcove barely wide enough for my shoulders.

"He's on the top floor," one of them said with distaste, as though the words were s.h.i.+t in her mouth. Or maybe being forced to help us made her ill. I didn't like it, either. Seemed against the natural order of things.